Getting started

The recording shows the steps on this page: install odctl, preview a profile, start it, list the containers and stop them.

Requirements

• Docker Engine or Docker Desktop, running. Give Docker 8 to 16 GB of memory.
• Python 3.10 or later.

Install

odctl is a command-line tool, so install it into its own environment with uv or pipx.

uv tool install odctl
# or
pipx install odctl

pip install odctl also works.

Create a workspace

odctl init

This copies the compose files and their settings into .odctl in the current directory, and writes .odctl/.env with TAG set to the CLI version. odctl reads from .odctl whenever it exists, so you can edit any file there. Workspace explains what changes with and without it, and how to customise it.

Start a profile

List the profiles, then see what one of them starts:

odctl list
odctl up kafka-lite --dry-run

The dry run prints which compose files and profiles it would start:

Start it:

odctl up kafka-lite

odctl starts the profiles kafka-lite depends on first, then Kafka. It waits until the services are running, and healthy where they define a health check. odctl explain kafka-lite prints its addresses, and the Messaging page lists the same.

Check what is running, and stop everything when you are done:

odctl ps --all
odctl down --all

odctl down removes the containers, and the data inside them goes with them. See How it works.